🚀 Add to Chrome – It’s Free - YouTube Summarizer
Category: Religious Reflection
Tags: CommunityFaithIncarnationJoyService
Entities: BarbaraHabacJaredJesus ChristLeahMatthewPaulSilasStevenTyrone
00:00
It's a little strange for us being back in this space. We were here from 2003 to 2015.
Every service, how many years is that? 12 * 50.
So like 600 plus services. And um uh and we're only here
00:19
now a couple times a year. The reason we're here, in case you're wondering, is that our our usual space is now a huge boy market.
And um and we do that because we serve hundreds and hundreds of families in the community with toys for their children. So that specifically
00:34
is why we're here. Most often it is um we're here for one Sunday.
This Sunday or this year a new um department of the mission is running the toy market and they were afraid they couldn't get it done in just about one one week. And so
00:50
that's why we are here this Sunday and next Sunday. Let's uh let's pray together.
Holy God, thank you for your word. Thank you for this time of year where we can reflect and uh we can just uh seek to understand your heart for us.
I pray that the words in our mouth and
01:05
the meditation of our hearts would be pleasing unto you, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. >> Amen.
Amen. So I have a question for you.
You may have picked up that the theme today is uh Advent and joy. And so uh what gives you joy?
Name one thing
01:22
that gives you joy. family.
>> Grandchildren. Amen.
Family. Amen.
>> Your grand >> friends. Amen.
>> God's love. >> God's love.
Yes. >> Puppies.
01:37
>> Puppies. >> Puppies and cats.
I'm an animal lover. Um, and so I totally relate.
I actually relate better to animals than I do people, truth be told. Yeah.
Um, anything else that gives you joy? >> What's that?
life.
01:54
>> The gift of life. >> The gift of life.
Wow. >> Answer to prayer.
>> Answers to prayer. Yes.
>> Music. >> Music.
Amen. Amen.
Yeah. So, there's a lot of things uh that that that's come to mind when we think of the word joy.
02:12
Um, of course, I've had um times of great happiness in my life, which come close to joy. Marrying my beautiful wife, Barbara, in 1987.
Uh that was a great highlight. I have a little a little more hair and um
02:29
probably about [music] 60 lbs lighter. Uh yeah.
Uh but then you know what? Then comes the challenge of marriage, right?
The ups and downs, the financial struggles, health struggles and changes in our lives due
02:44
to the deaths of various family members. Uh so that's a reality, right?
um having our children, Jared and Leah, uh were both sources of great joy. But you know what?
When Jared was born, uh both he and Barbara came very close to losing
03:01
their lives. Their lives were hanging by a thread for way too long.
And then there's a struggle of raising children through illness, through their rebellion, um through their own struggles as adults. But then there's a blessing uh
03:17
as our daughter Leah gets married and as Jared is settled very well into a very strong relationship. But of course nothing beats as was already said uh the incredible um blessing of grandkids.
The
03:32
these are our grandkids. The taller one is Steven and the shorter one is Matthew.
So, you know, we pass through many seasons of life and many uh seasons of great happiness um and moments that I
03:47
would say come really really close to what we would call joy. Yet, each one follows a natural course that inevitably rises to peaks and then sinks into valleys.
That is life. Uh by far the the
04:06
greatest point of joy for me was coming to faith in Jesus Christ when I was just 17 years old uh on March 15th of 1980. Um and that has been a joy that has sustained me for over 45 years.
In the midst of the ups and downs of life, uh,
04:23
losses of people that I love, all manners of struggle, the pure joy of knowing Jesus trumps everything by a very, very wide margin. And I cannot overstate the massive, extraordinary
04:40
blessing of the change that came into my life permanently when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And many of us could say amen to that.
>> Amen. >> So, it strikes me that for all of our advances as a as a society,
04:59
um for all of the ways we've developed since the events that were described in in the passage that David just read happened, uh humanity is still humanity, right? People are still people.
Uh much of life was very difficult back then.
05:15
Much of life is very difficult now. We needed God back in the time of Jesus.
We need God now in our lives. And back then many believed in God.
Um many didn't or they followed after idols or they
05:33
believed in God kind of in theory but it didn't didn't mean much because they did not follow the ways of God outlined in the Bible. And those ways, which some consider so heavy, uh they're kind of outlined in
05:48
the Ten Commandments, you know, they were only ever calling us back to what we were created for and how we were created. Right?
After God created the world, he then created something quite unique in his own image. God created
06:05
mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them.
male and female, he created them, right? So, the male and female that that's part of the image of God.
This is a painting that my father uh did that shows the creation of
06:21
the first person. Uh it's got a first nations twist.
Um and um a few verses later, God steps back in Genesis and he says this or it says God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very
06:40
good. Here's actually another depiction of um kind of called Eden.
It's another painting by my father. Uh if you look at it, it's actually all of North America with the First Nations couples there.
Um my family was raised with a very very
06:55
deep and profound respect for for indigenous uh communities and um so uh yeah so so one implication of all of this relates to our inner life our conscience and that's where God's command comes in and to understand that
07:13
we we can look again at the Ten Commandments which is really kind of the basis of the Old Testament law and you might ask how do the Ten Commandments fit into that. It's actually pretty simple on the one hand and pretty cosmic on the other.
I've already suggested it, right? We're made in God's image.
What's
07:31
that about? Well, for instance, very simply, God doesn't steal.
So, we made in God's im God's image should not steal, right? Um and that's the commandment.
God doesn't lie. So, we should not lie as imagebearers of God.
07:48
There's a direct onetoone connection there. And uh it was the same with many of the other commandments.
And those commandments were simply a call to live as we were created as imagebearers of God, made in the image of God. And
08:04
they're really all about kind of ordering our internal world. Ordering our internal world.
But do you ever feel like it's chaos on the inside? Do >> you ever kind of look in the mirror or just kind of think about where you're at?
we got distracted and kind of feel
08:22
like it's chaos on the inside. A lot of us feel that way sometimes and that's because we're living out of alignment with the way we are intended by our creator to live.
Very often that is the cause. Maybe not the only cause,
08:38
but it's it's a big one. And and not only us in this room, but all of humanity got shifted out of alignment with God.
So our internal moral world, which is kind of like a universe in itself, got seriously displaced, messed
08:56
up, fouled up by the first few humans who were ever made in God's image. So Adam and Eve's decision to want to be like and to live like God's was the decision to live in a a really
09:14
gross distortion of reality. What reality?
The reality that God is God. Our creator is God.
The Lord is God. And we are not.
We are not. He is above.
We
09:30
are below. That's the truth.
That's the reality. So because of this what they call proto sin where they were the first sin the internal moral world of every human being has been or leans heavily to being messed up ever since our internal
09:49
moral world drifts toward chaos when it is not anchored in the truth. When it's not anchored in the truth.
[clears throat] Uh you might have loved and served God for a long time. Um you might be in a
10:06
season of life where you're considering returning to a relationship with God after maybe had to spend some time away from his presence. Perhaps you've tasted what the world has to offer and have come to suspect that truthfully God and
10:22
following Jesus have far more to offer both here and in eternity. >> Amen.
Or maybe you don't care about eternity. Maybe it's hard to catch a vision of that.
Maybe you feel like life should be anchored to something lest
10:38
drifting forever becomes our future. Wherever you are at, I just want to say that of course you are welcome here.
Um, and that's kind of a sign of a healthy church, right? We're not all at the same place in our lives.
We do not all think
10:56
the same way. But we are all together in our own ways seeking God.
Or maybe maybe we're not yet seeking God. But we like being part of what feels like an authentic community of fellow
11:13
strugglers. We just had a funeral for a dear beloved brother, Tyrone.
He joined us maybe nine years ago. And when he came, he was a a hardcore atheist.
really profound atheist who I could relate to because I was raised atheist
11:29
and over his time with us he began to reconsider and he began to be influenced by all of us and so he began to his heart opened up so he considered he went from thinking of you Christians >> to us Christians right and that's from
11:46
him being part of us for that time many of us are still in mourning for him he was very close to William's part of our is part of our kind of every every Sunday. He's our greeter who's a doorkeeper.
[clears throat]
12:04
So hear this. You can belong to this church before being clear about the Christian faith.
But it is necessary of course to be to be able to but to be willing to um journey with others who are seeking to follow Jesus. Jesus the
12:21
God man. Jesus, the one who came to us as an infant.
And again, in this season, we are looking at the miracle of the incarnation. The miracle of the incarnation as in this photo, the entry of the son of God into this world.
Um
12:39
this that reality of his entry was uh it came in a very very human way, right? He did not come as a as as a mature man or a military leader.
He came as a helpless infant and it truly was
12:55
so human, right? But despite the simple appearance of a normal birth, we find that really what's going on here and depicted in this in this photograph is God is breaking into human reality.
He's
13:12
breaking into human history. He's breaking somewhat into human chaos.
The everlasting one is touching down in person into a human situation. As I've said recently before, the author
13:29
of the story has written himself into the scene for you and for me. And the same word who spoke galaxies into being chose to step into his own creation as a
13:47
baby, right? And you know, you know that galaxies are still being formed that the more that the more they send the the Hubble teles satellites and and the more and more that telescopes get fine, they're they're seeing the birth of new
14:03
galaxies. So God is still doing this stuff.
It's incredible. It's truly amazing.
But Jesus came wrapped in human flesh, held by a loving, blessed mother, loved by a human stepfather.
14:20
It's amazing when you think about it that we have a God who knows the life we live because he too lived it though without sin. And he claimed no special advantage over common people.
14:37
That really means that the one who knows every star by name also knows your name. Also knows your name, your story and your wounds.
The incarnation that we celebrate at
14:54
this time of year is the invasion of divine life into our darkness again and into our chaos. The angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon you.
The power of the highest shall overshadow
15:10
thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God.
So divinity has beaten a path into the human dilemma. looked humanity straight in the eyes and called each of us brother,
15:27
sister, friend. And this, I think, is perhaps what we can think of as the root of true joy.
The root of true joy. What does God say to us in this season of life?
Especially when we might be so
15:45
aware of the darkness around us and the darkness inside of us. or maybe when our our experience of life is right now is maybe the opposite of joy.
Uh I I want to get practical here after my attempt to paint a picture of the
16:01
hardness of life and the goodness of God. I'm going to speak in broad terms about avenues to joy and barriers to joy.
There are there are roots. There are pathways.
There are decisions and actions and and attitudes
16:19
that lead to joy. And there are roots and pathways and decisions and attitudes that will lead us away from joy.
So what leads us toward joy? Right?
So our decisions are they wise? Are they
16:34
truthful? Are they loving?
Our attitudes, do we have gratitude? Do we have hope?
Do we have humility? Our actions Are they filled with integrity?
Are we oriented towards service? Do we have healthy rhythms in our lives?
This is
16:51
what causes joy uh to to grow. When we walk this way, joy doesn't just drop in for a visit.
It moves in. It takes its shoes off and it starts to rearrange the furniture.
17:07
Things that move us away from joy are decisions that are selfish and impulsive and dishonest. Attitudes that carry bitterness and envy and that are desparing [clears throat] and actions where we isolate ourselves or others.
Uh we kind of numb ourselves
17:24
to the world around us uh by one of any number of means and maybe we neglect that which we should give attention to. that these are the things that drain joy.
Um and uh you know joy doesn't
17:40
merely dim it kind of packs up and leaves a we note on the counter uh you know where to find me when you're ready. Right?
But as we look at this it's kind of obvious on the one hand there's no great revelation here. But sometimes we
17:57
lose track of the obvious in the day-to-day struggle of life. And that's part of what makes it feel like chaos.
So maybe this helps us unpack a few things. But of course, there's something way deeper than this.
Something that undergurs joy. Something
18:14
that is an anchor to joy. Joy really is an attitude or a state of being that is not subject to circumstances to things going well or going badly for us.
Happiness is a
18:33
response to things going well and it turns on a dime when bad things happen as they always will. I want to suggest that all of the challenges related to having real joy or not having real joy can be whittleled
18:49
down to or or synthesized down to one main question. And it's it's one main question not because a joy is fragile but because it runs deep.
And here's the question. What is settled in your mind
19:05
and in your heart and in your soul? What is settled?
There are two key areas that lead to a real consistent experience of the joy of the Lord.
19:21
Is joy for you a feeling that you can lose or is it a reality that holds you? >> Again, happiness rises and falls with circumstances, but the joy of the Lord goes far deeper than circumstances, deeper than the mood.
You ever have
19:38
trouble with moods? kind of moods go up and down, right?
Um, deeper than momentum. So, it's not just about kind of how much we're getting done on a given day or how how much we're feeling connected.
Um, goes deeper than a than a good week. It goes deeper than a terrible week.
Real joy does not blow
19:55
away in the wind. It is, like I've said, anchored.
And so again the question is what is established in you in your mind your heart your soul that makes joy resilient almost perhaps impervious to what's
20:13
happening around you and I want to give you two key areas that once settled don't just increase joy they actually make it steady the first thing that leads to deep joy
20:28
way truly in a sustained way is knowing God through Jesus Christ. >> Amen.
>> It is in believing the gospel of God's grace. And what is that?
So the gospel is the good news that God loves us.
20:44
Jesus died for our sins. You rose again.
And anyone who trusts in him is forgiven and given new life with God now and forever. That's one definition.
It's a simple definition. That's the gospel in a nutshell.
If you
21:01
believe the gospel, you know, you know that you are forgiven. You know that the wall that once separated you from God, the great chasm that stood between you and a relationship with God is no longer there
21:18
because of Christ. >> Amen.
>> Because of Christ. Jesus has made a way for you to live not in fear of God's judgment.
Not estranged or somehow as a stranger to God, but actually as a
21:33
friend of God. And actually, if you're a follower of Jesus, you're an adopted child of God.
That's why uh that's the way the Bible describes your relationship with God. Those who are led by the spirit of God are children of God.
The spirit you
21:49
received brought about your adoption to sunship or being children of by and by him we cry aba father. The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
Amen. Amen.
22:05
>> So when this gospel is settled in your mind, you understand what Jesus did and that what he did, he did for you. When the gospel is settled in your heart, you know that you know that you know that
22:22
God is for you and not against you. that God loved you, valued you enough to send his only son to lay down his life for you.
>> Amen. >> That was my revelation of Jesus.
Like
22:39
faith only comes through revelation. Doesn't come through an accumulation of knowledge.
It only comes through revelation. When when that was revealed to me that that that God sent his only son uh to to give his life for me, that's when the lights went on.
after I'd heard the gospel for maybe six
22:55
months, that's when the lights went on. So when the gospel settled in you, heart, mind, and soul, that can only lead to joy.
How is it though that we can have joy,
23:13
not happiness based on circumstances, but real joy deep down inside of us? that joy that has sustained many of us for most of our lives even though there has been real suffering in our lives.
I think of Paul and Silas.
23:29
So that there's some very interesting stories, very human stories and some very strange stories in the Bible. And one of them is Paul and Silas in prison.
And the book of Acts reports that when they were in prison, because they were sharing the gospel, so they they were preaching the gospel when they got
23:45
thrown into jail, they were in a dark, miserable, moldfilled Roman jail, cold, damp, and singing praises to God. >> Hallelujah.
>> How does that make any sense? Unless
24:02
there's something deeply, deeply angered in them. Habac was an Old Testament prophet most likely to Judah uh who spoke as a nation was sliding toward an invasion and Habac is a is a powerful example because he refuses to fail it.
24:19
He looks straight at the coming losses and um and he describes it in plain language. He says no figs, no grapes, no olives, no harvest, no sheep, no cattle, nothing left to lean on.
And then he
24:35
says something that only makes sense if joy runs deeper than the circumstances. He says, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will be joyful in God my savior." So that is not a sunny mood. That is not
24:53
waking up on the right side of the bed. That is settled faith.
Habac shows us a joy that is not rooted in what he has, but in who God is. And then there's the apostles
25:12
in Acts chapter 5. They again are preaching the gospel.
They're newly empowered by the Holy Spirit after having been a bunch of clouds. basically that they they they become this um these articulate passionate men who have seen the risen Christ and they they um they
25:29
preach the gospel and then they are they are threatened and they are foggged fogged that's a that's a an English word that covers a multitude of sins to be flogged is to be is to be whipped with a cat and ninetails uh 40 minus one
25:44
because 40 lashes kills you generally speaking so they are they are threatened and flawed They're publicly shamed. They're physically badly wounded.
And then they leave. And the text says they rejoiced because they had been counted worthy to
26:01
suffer disgrace for the name. They rejoiced.
That is weird. That is odd.
That is strange. We should just not just read that and go on for a minute.
You have to think >> how
26:18
>> and how first thing I would think is how >> and then I think how how that's because it's not the circumstances. There is something far far deeper that's taken root in their souls.
Their reaction does
26:34
not match their injuries, right? It rises above them.
They're not celebrating pain. for celebrating belonging.
for celebrating belonging. When your identity is settled, when you know who's you are, joy can show up in
26:53
places where it seems like it should not exist. >> You know, Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is within you and in your midst." In um I have that here, we don't.
So, um, in Luke 17, the NIV
27:11
says, "The kingdom of God is in your midst." And the KJV says, "The kingdom of God is within you." That's because the original means both. A kingdom is wherever a king's authority is recognized.
When King Jesus is trusted,
27:28
his reign takes root inside a person, shaping our conscience, shaping our desires, and shaping our identity. That's why joy can be steady.
It's tied to who rules your heart. It's tied to
27:47
who rules your heart, not what happens to you. But the kingdom is also in our midst, right?
It becomes visible between us as brothers and sisters in Christ when we forgive one another, when we serve one another, when we speak truth,
28:04
when we bear burdens, when we love across differences, >> right? So joy is not it is private, but it's not only private.
And it's something a community can carry together when Christ the Lord is at our center.
28:25
Christine's going to go for for >> um if the gospel is not settled in you, real joy will be thin and and occasional and it probably won't even really be joy. You might catch glimpses like
28:42
standing outside in the cold, looking in at the Christmas windows that used to be at El and Simpsons, right? Watching others worship, feeling the sweetness, maybe leaving church encouraged.
But unshakable joy, the kind that holds steady when losses hit and when
28:59
hardships hit, comes when the good news is settled in your soul. And that happens when we bring God our
29:15
doubts and when we choose daily and somewhat simply to trust in him. There's another thing that leads to true joy
29:31
and living at peace with God. And that's when that's happening in our thoughts and our actions.
when when right and wrong right and wrong good and evil is established in our lives right God's way of living is the way of freedom it's the
29:46
way of openness and generosity it's the way of relationship and the way of love and that's actually really what even the law of God is about is to help us to know right from wrong to help us live free from bondage to sin
30:03
and here's the deal when right and wrong is not settled in us. Whenever we face a moral choice or an ethical decision, we will face a dilemma that will compromise our joy.
Even if we
30:19
do trust in Jesus and and we do trust the gospel, I'm so glad that God has given us the Bible to help build our lives on what is true, to be able to discern right from wrong.
30:36
Don't be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy.
It'll be for all the people. Good news of great joy for everyone.
So there's something here that's universal. Something we should want to hear, want to know about, maybe even want to spread
30:54
to our neighbors. And it is news of great joy.
If everyone in any circumstance of life, any language, any ethnicity, any culture can access this joy, it must be a joy
31:10
that rises above circumstances. It must be a joy that's not the property of one class or one nation or one people.
It's a joy for everyone and it's a generous joy. And it's a generous joy about the great news of Christ's coming.
31:26
But when that's the case, it's going to cause me, it would seem likely, to shift my focus from just thinking about my problems and my needs to thinking about someone else's needs. Perhaps your needs.
Perhaps this is a joy that actually takes me out of my personal
31:43
sorrow. As I said, like all of us, I've experienced a lot of sorrow and loss in my life.
But believing in and focusing my attention and energy on God and not my losses, my own sorrow changes.
32:02
The very shocking news of the incarnation, God taking on human flesh, which is revealed as only as true only by the Holy Spirit, lifts me up above my situation and calls me to participate in
32:17
something much greater than my singular life. Again, this connects me to you and you to me.
And it calls all of us to lift our eyes up to look beyond the valleys and even the hills to the one who created both of those things from
32:35
his dwelling place. And who, the good news suggests, is not planning on sitting tight in his dwelling place.
He is coming. He is coming to you and he's coming to me.
And today in this month, we're celebrating Advent. Advent.
Advent really means the coming and we're
32:50
talking about the first coming of Christ. But of course, it's also going to be uh and this is a time when we can give special consideration to his promised second coming, the return of Jesus.
He's going to return in the flesh. And there's a whole lot we could say about that, but that's a big part of
33:07
what Advent is. It's looking back at the first time he came and anticipating when he will come again and set everything right.
>> Amen. >> So, I think I think we better look up and also to to commit or to recommmit ourselves to the truths of this season.
33:26
The gospel is real. The incarnation of Christ, God manifested and came to us in the flesh.
Comes to us in the flesh. This truth calls me really to commit my whole life to this Christ child that we celebrate this season.
33:43
And it is a call to expect God to expect that God does reach into human history which means by the way into your story the life journey that you are on right now. And he reaches into our lives in
33:59
order to shape us in order to make us like his own beloved son. And it starts by the Holy Spirit of God birthing something in you like the Holy Spirit births something in Mary.
That's where joy comes from. God's joy
34:17
is birthed a new in us as he sends the Holy Spirit to do one of two things. If we've never known the son, if we've never known Jesus as Lord and Savior, if we've never received him, the Holy Spirit comes and
34:33
births faith in us. He gives us the capacity to understand the gospel.
Like I said, I heard the gospel for 6 months uh before the lights went on. And that's the Holy Spirit worked in my in my heart to make it real and to make it incredibly meaningful.
Whereas the first
34:50
two times I heard it, it made no sense. it was just so much clutter.
When the Holy Spirit comes and when he's welcomed, he takes up residence in us and he calls us to Jesus. This is an incredible gift.
So that's one thing the
35:05
Holy Spirit brings faith, brings saving faith. The other thing the Holy Spirit does is renew faith.
Maybe this past week has been kind of pulverizing for you, right? Maybe hopes and dreams have been
35:21
bloodied and maybe we've lost track of why any of it matters. The Holy Spirit calls us in this time of Advent to reclaim then what we have believed to return if we need to to a place of surrender to God's will to
35:39
allow him to bind up our wounds to allow him to take up the broken pieces of our lives. You know, he wants to do that.
He cares when we get hurt. He cares when life smacks us around.
He cares when we
35:54
stumble and fall. And he does way more than care.
He calls us to lift our eyes from the muck and the mire around us to look upon him even as he comes to us as an infant. I what an absolutely amazing thing to be
36:12
called upon to to gaze upon the wonder of the baby in the manger and to grasp once again by God's grace what deep and profound love exists in the manger
36:27
that the Christ of God would leave his comfort at the right hand of the father in order to come to me to come to you in the manger not a place of dignity but a place of identification with us. Think of the energy involved in that.
36:43
Think of the effort, think of the love bound up in that single act of incarnation. There is uh I find great joy in such thoughts and there is hope in such an understanding.
Our redeemer, the one whose arrival we
37:00
anticipate this advent knows and loves and reaches out to you and to me aresh to say once again, come follow me. >> Amen.
>> And so the joy of the Lord is our
37:16
strength. It's still true to this very day when we've settled in our hearts and our minds and our souls that we believe the gospel that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory of God the Father.
we have joy. And then when we live our lives
37:31
consistent with that first joy, when we live in obedience to Jesus by living with a clear conscience, then that joy has an opportunity to burrow down deep into our lives. And as important as this season of
37:48
Advent, the season of Emanuel is, it's also a story, a narrative that continues through us, through you and through me. The incarnation shows that God's strategy for changing the world is
38:04
personal presence. Personal presence.
God moved into neighborhoods in Jesus. Now he moves into more neighborhoods through you.
Amen.
38:20
>> Amen. >> You'll find in the um in the devotional guide uh some ways of kind of settling in settling into Jesus a way of kind of reentering your heart on the gospel and also of doing kind of an inventory so
38:35
you can keep a clear conscience. Um and uh you'll you'll see that and I encourage you to take it.
It's both it's both in the um devotional content and it's on I think page 10 as well. Um so joy leaks when right and wrong is not
38:53
settled in us. >> So we want to build a rhythm where we don't carry moral fog around for weeks.
>> Amen. >> Yeah.
So here's the heart of it friends. The angel did not announce a good mood.
39:11
He announced good news, a great joy. And joy doesn't come from getting a break.
It comes from getting a savior. It isn't the thin happiness that rises and falls with paychecks and diagnoses
39:26
and relationships or the weather. Real joy is what happens when the gospel is settled in you and the reign of King Jesus is established within you.
When that settles, when you know that you're forgiven, adopted, held, and loved, joy
39:44
becomes an anchor, not a visitor. And then as you walk in the ways of God with a clear conscience, that joy doesn't just keep you above water.
It becomes strength for obedience and courage for suffering and it becomes
40:00
love for your neighbor. Advent joy is God moving into the neighborhood in Christ and then moving deeper into the neighborhoods of our hearts by his spirit.
So I hope that none of us will stand outside the window looking in. Hope we
40:17
all come in, dig deep, settle in, receive him aresh. Because Christ who came to shepherds in the dark still comes to ordinary people in ordinary chaos with the same word.
Do not be
40:34
afraid. I bring you good news of great joy.
>> Amen. >> Let's pray.
Holy God, we thank you that you are good and we thank you that uh we are able to return to this season uh in the Christian year of reflecting on uh your
40:52
birth and uh we call it Christmas but what matters is that it's when you entered into this into this world and uh we thank you for all the love bound up in that action. Uh we thank you Jesus that though you were born as a as an infant uh you grew uh into a man and uh
41:10
you grew to become the one who would uh teach us the heart and mind shows exactly how God would behave if he was one of us and then you went to the cross for us Lord uh so that we can be restored to you through relationship with you and through believing the
41:26
gospel. We thank you for this gift and we pray father that you would give us all a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ.
That is the only way faith is alive and comes to sleep is through the revelation by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ and faith that would get manifested in our
41:41
lives this